Fish and Wildlife Service Plan Calls for Release of 12 Newborn Wolf Pups

posted Mar 17, 2018, 7:17 PM by chloe owens

12/4/2017, by Rebecca Moss, The New Mexican

Fish and Wildlife
Service plan calls for release of 12 newborn wolf pups

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to
release 12 newborn Mexican wolf pups in New Mexico and Arizona over the coming
year as part of its strategy to recover an endangered species that suffers from
severe inbreeding and weak genetics. The Mexican wolf is facing a “genetic
bottleneck,” the service said, adding that, “on average, individuals within the
population are as related to one another as full siblings.” Over 2018, a dozen
captive pups will be matched with wild litters that have been born at roughly
the same time as the domestic-bred pups, according to a plan released by the
service Monday. The plan also outlines temporarily removing an adult female
wolf from the Panther Creek Pack in Arizona, to avoid direct inter-sibling
breeding, and allowing her to instead mate with an adult male from
captivity…The plan outlines recovering 320 wolves south of Interstate 40 in New
Mexico and Arizona, which would nearly triple the current populations, and
establishing an additional 200 animals in Mexico. At this rate, recovery, and
beginning to remove the species from the U.S. Endangered Species Act, is
expected in 25 to 30 years at a cost of $178 million.